My wife bought me a Garmin GPS for Christmas last year. After showing her Google Navigation on my G1, she asked if her gift is obsolete. Sorry to say but, for anything but long-distance treks, Google's Navigation is good enough.

I've been using Google Maps Navigation on an HTC G1, which is not the higher-powered, bigger-screened Droid it was designed for. That said, Navigation has delivered that "I'm living in the future" feeling that makes you start mentally marking down the margin you paid for your gadgets. It combines a slew of services Google has recently refined—overhead maps and street-level images, voice recognition, local searches with plain English queries, and traffic data from real drivers—and presents them in an interface that's surprisingly inviting and useful, given Google's tendency for the Hey It Works school of design. More than anything, though, it's free, the data it serves up is free, and it'll always remain up to date for free.

That's not to say that my Garmin, a Nuvi 350 model bought for about $100, doesn't do its primary job, and do it well once it's working. But Google's free offering has made my phone the go-to gadget for navigating across the city or on same-day car trips. For long drives across regions without great cellular coverage, you might still want a stand-alone GPS unit. Navigation downloads all the map data over your phone's data connection, while most GPS devices store gigabytes worth of map data locally.

Update: A Google rep wrote to us, stating that while Navigation requires a data connection to plot its routes, search, and make detours and re-routes. But, once you've been driving a while, "as long as you don't stray from the route, you will continue to get voice guidance even without a data connection."

Assuming Google intends to make Navigation available on any future Android phone, and maybe iPhones as well, GPS navigation devices are going to have to develop features that add cleverness and value to compete for the crowd that's just looking for the local Marriott.

Using Google Maps Navigation

From the video tour Google offered up with the Droid launch, it's easy to assume that Navigation offers a turn-by-turn experience inside its Street View images—kind of like driving through a first-person shooter game with a thick blue line. It's disappointing when you realize it doesn't do live turn-by-turn in Street View; instead it only gives you the handy view when you click to see an upcoming turn or intersection. Still, Navigation's driving view is just as good as a GPS unit's, and at times even a little better.

The big advantages Google pushes have to do with local information. Inside the app itself, that means putting Google's "Layers" on top of your standard three-quarter view of the streets. You can have live traffic indicators overlaid on your streets, see your maps in satellite pictures, or have nearby restaurants, gas stations, banks, ATMs, and hotels show up. While you're navigating, you can also tap the voice search button and find something nearby that you're looking for. High-end GPS models likely offer similar voice-activated search, but likely not at the speed and with the range of results Google provides.

What really impressed me, though, was the actual turn-by-turn experience. The map automatically zooms in and out as your speed fluctuates, giving you a tight, precise view of where you're supposed to turn when you're slowing down for an off-ramp or intersection, but pulling back when you're cruising the highway and looking for the bigger road changes. The digital voice reading your directions is ever-so-slightly distorted compared to others I've heard, but you can understand it without problems. If you can't live without your digitized British female tour guides, well, I understand.

Data pulling, road refreshes, and GPS location awareness were definitely at par with my stand-alone unit, even on an EDGE connection, beneath a city's taller buildings. This will vary from city to city, and from phone to phone, of course—but I'd consider using a hacked G1 in Buffalo, NY a fairly good test of both location and lag-ridden hardware. Since Navigation runs as a background process, you can take phone calls over your speaker or through a Bluetooth headset, and Navigation will cut in (on your audio only) when it's time to make a turn. You can also switch out of Navigation's view to perform other tasks, if you feel like callously endangering the lives of everybody on the road around you with certain distraction and delayed response time.

Navigation does warn you about that distraction danger, by the way, when you first launch it, but only that one time. Whether that's an advantage over GPS units' regular reminders depends on your point of view. Actually, let's go ahead and assume you like fewer nag screens.

If you're driving somewhere without EDGE or 3G data coverage on your carrier, Maps Navigation will eventually run out of maps to show you. There might be local maps packs to pull down in the future, and wireless data coverage might eventually bridge its gaps over the last mile. If rural coverage is a non-starter for you, you weren't likely to buy a smartphone anyways. Otherwise, Navigation probably does everything your stand-alone GPS unit does.

Using a GPS device

The GPS device I'd been using for the better part of a year, a Garmin Nuvi 350, is far from the top of the line. Most readers will be familiar with how one works, even if they haven't owned one, so I'll just say what's different and unique.

The obvious advantages are that you're not draining, or at least continually charging, your main cellphone's battery, and that a GPS unit can dish out directions almost anywhere, without any need for a wireless data connection. Depending on your phone, the screen on a GPS unit may be bigger, and, on my Nuvi, at least, the "Night Mode" that pops on at a dynamic sunset time is certainly very helpful. GPS units also come with all the hardware they need to mount to your window or dashboard, and for those afraid of their own distractions, don't ping you when new email or text messages come in.

As you know, Google's freebie turn-by-turn navigation app for Android 2.0 surfaced this week.…
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I have far from the perfect phone or GPS unit to make my judgments in the ideal realm, but I also consider myself a regular old consumer (as opposed to a latest-and-greatest gadget guy). Could you abandon your stand-alone GPS unit, or take it off your wish list, for Google's Navigation? Give us your take in the comments.